Why Connie Britton Isn’t Mourning the Nixed Friday Night Lights Movie

Nashville star Connie Britton isn't sorry that her beloved TV series Friday Night Lights likely won't be made into a movie. “You know what, I actually feel like it’s good,” Britton said of Lights creator Peter Berg's recent announcement that a movie version ) isn't in the cards. “I think that the decision needed to be made, and there’s been so much going back and forth about it now for so long. And I feel like the only way that was ever going to work is if it just fell into place beautifully, and if everybody was on board, because we couldn’t do anything to risk what Friday Night Lights has already been.”

She told us that what made the show so innovative was how those who worked on it “valued and celebrated creative freedom. . . . The whole show worked in that balance, so the writers wrote what they wrote, and then they passed it along down to Austin, Texas, and then the actors worked in a very sort of free, spontaneous way—the camera people, the crew, everybody. And it was very unique in that way, and, I think, groundbreaking. And also, we really weren’t too worried about doing things the way that everybody else did them—we sort of wanted to do it our own way, and that will always be really special to me.”

Meanwhile, by noon on Thursday, Robin Wright still hadn’t processed the fact that earlier that morning she’d been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role as Claire Underwood in House of Cards. She had something else on her mind. “I’m so nervous just doing this speech I have to do in a half hour,” Wright told VF Daily at the Hilton, where she was about to receive a Muse award from New York Women in Film & Television. She got the news about the Globes nomination via text from her publicist. House of Cards was also nominated in the best-series category, but Wright had yet to congratulate her castmates.

Wright waited in terror for about two hours before finally taking the dais to accept her award. “I was the least likely candidate to be an actress,” she told the crowd. “I’ve never had that desire to be up on the stage and be that one everybody was looking at. But what bit me was the opportunity to tell someone else’s story.” Wright said that overcoming her fear of being the center of attention ultimately proved valuable: After seeing the documentary The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, she got involved in fighting sexual violence in that country. “I traveled recently to the Congo, and I met the subjects of the film,” Wright said. “And I’m devoted to telling their story. And this is how I like to use my voice.” She encouraged the powerful women in the room to advocate for change on issues small and large.

Fellow N.Y.W.I.F.T. honoree Ellen Barkin said that over her 30-some-year career, she never wanted to play a character that made a woman feel badly about herself. “There was a kind of a plan, it was a little more than just saying, ‘Yes, I like that part,’ and ‘No, I don’t like that part,’” Barkin said. She told VF Daily how she came up with that plan as a budding actor. “I did a movie very early on in my career; it was based on a Grace Paley story, called Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, and I played a very working-class, New York City single mom trying to raise three kids. And something clicked in me, that I just felt like this is what I want to do with my career. I want to give a voice and dignity to the women that formed me, or versions of those women, whether they’re from Tennessee or the South Bronx,” Barkin explained.

Also honored at the N.Y.W.I.F.T. luncheon were Sonia Manzano, who plays Maria on Sesame Street, Frances Berwick, president of Bravo and Oxygen, and actress/producer Nancy Malone. Andy Cohen and Wendy Williams served as co-hosts.